As the Days of All My Bold and Beautiful Children are Restless

If you or someone you know happens to be writing a soap opera or telenovela, my wife and I would like to invite you to spend the morning in our home where you can soak up some great source material. The following is a small sample of the dialogue you’re at some point likely to experience:

[We open on a small kitchen table. It is morning, and the day’s first rays of sun highlight tiny motes of dust in the still air. All is quiet . . .until it isn’t.]

“Stop looking at me!”

“I’m not looking at you!”

“You are looking at me!”

“How can I be looking at you when my eyes are closed, see? . . . Mom! She just stuck her tongue out at me!”

“How would you know that if your eyes were closed?”

[Camera pans to mom, who throws her hands to her face and gasps.]

“How indeed?!”

[Dun Dun Duuuuun!]

[A family eats breakfast at the same small kitchen table. The original characters are there, but others have joined, groggy and a bit unkempt.]

“Do we have any more jelly?”

“Nobody in this house likes me!”

“O-k….We all like you, and we love you.”

“Nobody likes me! NOBODY!”

[A Young Girl stands abruptly, slowly eyeing everyone in the room. She then twirls dramatically and marches through the doorway. The silence resumes.]

[The heavily-filtered camera zooms in on Youngest Girl’s face, as a single tear rolls down her cheek. Soft piano can be faintly heard.]

“This,” she says, choking back a sob, “is the worst day ever.”

[The remaining family members are still at the small kitchen table; the atmosphere is tense.]

“I’ve never sat in that chair in a long time!

“That doesn’t even make any sense.”

“Stop it! YOU don’t make sense! You’re not the boss of me!”

[Camera pans to kitchen, where Father is biting his fist. He looks directly into the camera which zooms in comically fast, framing his chubby cheeks.]